Serious Pulse

Steel Pulse looking serious. LtoR: Donovan McKitty, David Hinds, Selwyn Brown, Sidney Mills, Wayne C-Sharp Clarke & Amlak Tafari

I haven't posted anything on the best music band on the planet, Steel Pulse, for a while, so here's a group photo I found by accident today. The band rarely pose for group shots and this one doesn't include their regular female backing vocalists, Juris Prosper and Keysha McTaggart. I think it was taken sometime in July. The band are on a mini-break at the moment before travelling to Brazil for 4 shows in mid November. They rarely rest. For more on Steel Pulse, click here.
Another musician I miss since my migration is Basil Gabbidon, a Steel Pulse founding member back in the day. Basil in his various guises, either Gabbidon, Reggaerockz, simply Blu, etc, etc, is still doing the business and the picture below was snapped by Tim Ellis at the Birmingham Arts Festival in September, when Gabbidon played the Fountain stage at Victoria Square. My thanks to Tim.

Basil Gabbidon - September 2009 vintage by Tim Ellis

Talking old times

Mykaell Riley (left) and Basil Gabbidon talking about 'the good old days'

Steel Pulse rocked my world in 1978, the same year as they took the British public by storm with their debut album on Island Records, Handsworth Revolution. The band had started out a few years before in the kitchen of some schoolboys in Handsworth in Birmingham and they have gone onto become reggae legends around the globe. They are still performing to full houses today though only two of that seven-man 1978 line-up remain, David Hinds and Selwyn Brown. For the recent Island Records 50th anniversary series of concerts, Steel Pulse were back on stage in London and invited two members of the 1978 group to join them, the first time they've been back in the fold together since the end of that milestone year. Basil Gabbidon remained with the band until 1982 and is still playing roots reggae to audiences in Birmingham today, whilst Mykaell Riley is a music lecturer in London following a successful career in production after he left the band at the very end of 1978 in acrimonious circumstances. To find out the full Steel Pulse story, click here.